Fillet Welds Under Bending and Shear

Abstract

A 12-mm-thick plate representing a vessel wall and two others representing attachments on the “inside” and “outside” (forming a symmetrical cross) are jointed by 12-mm, full penetration fillet welds. The attachment plates are in shear and bending; the vessel wall is in tension. Full-size, frozen-stress, photoelastic models of a real weld and four simplified shapes have been made, tested and analyzed to determine surface stresses and their directions in the attachment plate and in the fillet welds. Two-dimensional SCFs for the (horizontal) cross section in tension give safe overestimates of measured peak bending stresses. The directions of the fillet stresses are generally within 20 deg of expected values.